


the things we learn in school

by extremegraphicviolins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crushes, First Meetings, Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, Heith - Freeform, I think I have a thing for theatre AUs, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 22:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13397196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extremegraphicviolins/pseuds/extremegraphicviolins
Summary: He works in tech. That’s the first thing Keith learns.The second thing, Keith learns from Lance: he’s an engineer. Or, at least, he’s going to be. Why an engineering student would choose to spend his free time working in the dusty, cramped sound booth of the theatre, Keith doesn’t know for sure. He guesses that it has something to do with Lance’s persuasion skills, the extra credit on offer, or both.The third thing Keith learns is his name.Hunk.He follows Lance’s gaze across the room, eyes landing on flannel and broad shoulders.It certainly suits him.





	the things we learn in school

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to relax and write something short and sweet, so here we are. Hope you enjoy :3

He works in tech. That’s the first thing Keith learns.

The second thing, Keith learns from Lance: he’s an engineer. Or, at least, he’s going to be. Why an engineering student would choose to spend his free time working in the dusty, cramped sound booth of the theatre, Keith doesn’t know for sure. He guesses that it has something to do with Lance’s persuasion skills, the extra credit on offer, or both.

The third thing Keith learns is his name.

Hunk.

He follows Lance’s gaze across the room, eyes landing on flannel and broad shoulders.

It certainly suits him.

#

Fourth, fifth, sixth.

His voice, his smile, the warmth of his palm when Keith shakes his hand.

Everyone’s milling around in the minutes before first read-through starts, introducing themselves or greeting friends. It’s supposed to be quick, but they end up chatting. It turns out that Hunk is here mostly because Lance talked him into it—but the extra credit is nice too, he says.

His exasperated sigh comes seventh, punctuated with an eye roll and the words, what do you _mean_ my extension cord is missing? thrown over his shoulder toward a muted, disembodied voice backstage.

I have to go, he says.

Keith waves off the apology waiting in his eyes. It’s fine, he says. I think read-through’s starting soon anyway. I’ll talk to you later?

Yeah, says Hunk. See you around.

Eighth, an afterthought as he goes to deal with the missing extension cord.

Eighth, a small smile thrown over his shoulder, as freely as if he had a million more to give.

#

So you’re a physics major, right? Hunk asks.

Yeah, Keith says, setting down the box of sound equipment he carried up to the booth. Astrophysics, actually.  

Nice, Hunk says, like he means it. It’s not a passive acknowledgement like it would be from anyone else. Coming from him, it’s a conviction, an affirmation. If this degree, in some twisted way, is Keith’s love letter to the night sky, then Hunk is his wingman, encouraging him to stand outside the universe’s window with a boombox on his shoulder and a full-to-bursting heart.

And you’re an engineer? Keith ventures.

Hunk nods, balancing his box of cords and cables on his hip while he unlocks the door to the soundbooth. Yup, he says, pushing the door open with his foot. A chemical engineer.

That makes nine.

#

Tenth is his focus.

It’s set painting night, and Keith walks onto the empty stage with coffees, pushing his rain-soaked hair out of his eyes with his free hand. He spots Hunk high on a ladder, fiddling with a spotlight that hasn’t worked in years.

Absorbed in his work, Hunk doesn’t spot Keith until several minutes later.

Hey, he calls. How long have you been standing there?

Not long, Keith calls back. You ready to do this?

Yeah. Just give me a second. Hunk looks back at the spotlight and gives it a final twist. It stutters and then flickers to life, bathing the stage in a pool of liquid gold.

The coffees are considerably cooler in Keith’s hands by the time Hunk comes down from the ladder and they get the sets dragged out and ready to paint. Neither of them seems to mind, though.

Matt was going to help with the sets tonight, but he came down with a nasty flu. So it’s just the two of them, painting and chatting and listening to the quiet indie playlist that Hunk pulls up on his phone.

Do you want a ride home? Hunk asks when they’re done for the night.

Keith shakes his head. It's okay, he says. I biked here, and it’s not that far away.

Dude. It’s pouring outside.

He’s not wrong; behind all their words is the heavy shimmer of cold October rain on the theatre’s roof.

C’mon, Hunk says. Don’t tell me you want to bike home in this.

Keith shifts on his feet. Well…

Is that a yes? Hunk asks, shrugging on his coat.

Keith relents. Yes.

And so, as Keith sits shotgun in Hunk’s old ochre car, Hunk’s kindness becomes the eleventh thing he learns.

Twelfth, though, is a low tolerance for tailgaters. Hunk curses under his breath, glances into the rearview mirror every few seconds at the grey pickup truck trailing close behind them. Jesus, he mutters. Quit riding my ass. There’s a passing lane right there!

Thirteen is the way Hunk keeps beat with the song on the radio, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, singing along in hushed, husky tones.

And fourteen is the funny thing it does to Keith’s chest.

#

Fifteen is his love of strong black tea. No milk, no sugar. Keith learns this the next time they work on sets together, and Hunk had insisted on being the one to bring drinks. (Really, he’d said over the phone. It’s my turn.)

Sixteen is his love of routine, a love that’s largely unrequited for the time being. If there’s one thing that theatre lacks, it’s a solid, consistent schedule. They find routine in the small things, though; in steam rising from paper cups and in mellow guitar rising from tinny cell phone speakers and in conversations rising from the space between them.

Seventeen surprises Keith. He wasn’t expecting Hunk to be so easy to talk to, about anything and everything. Words spill from Keith’s lips like a waterfall rushing through cracks in rough-hewn stone. It’s new, this openness, especially with someone so new in his life.

He’s finding, though, as the weeks pass, that he doesn’t mind at all.

#

The eighteenth thing hits him late at night, eyes wide open and arms splayed across his blanketed chest.

Maybe this is the feeling Lance is always gushing about: a tightness in his lungs, a dull throb that feels like a punch to the gut, a racing mind, a racing pulse.

 _A crush,_ his brain supplies helpfully.  

It scares him.

But maybe not as much as he thought it would.

#

Things with the play slow down for a couple weeks. The sets are done, and the sound and light systems are all working, so everyone in the tech department gets a bit of a break.

(The actors don’t. Lance is at the point where he alternates between going to rehearsal, complaining about rehearsal, and somehow managing to drink more coffee than Keith does. But behind all the complaints, he seems happy with how the show’s coming along, happy to be there. It’s almost Lance’s time to shine, and belting out songs under the spotlight at rehearsal, he absolutely glows.)

The break means that Keith has more time for doing schoolwork, but it also means he’s been seeing Hunk a lot less.

He’s fine.

(The dull ache that’s settled into his solar plexus hasn’t left.)

They text. Lance bugs him, sometimes, for being on his phone so much.

(Keith’s never been one to overthink punctuation before.)

They’re both busy, so it’s not like Keith has a lot of time to actively miss him.

(It’s not like they’re a thing, or anything. Keith doesn’t miss him like _that_.)

Still. Keith finds himself thinking of something that would make Hunk laugh or make him smile or roll his eyes, and he finds himself wanting to tell him in person, at the next rehearsal.

Even though the next rehearsal they’re attending will mark the start of aptly-named ‘hell week,’ Keith’s finding that he can’t wait.

#

The nineteenth thing Keith learns is that Hunk and hell week mix like oil and water: not at all. There’s only a week to go before opening night, and everyone is working double-time, trying to pin down loose choreography and stray snippets of dialogue. Not for the first time, Keith is glad that he’s not in the spotlight but controlling it.

Hey, Keith says to him two days before the show opens. We got this.

Hunk looks away from the soundboard and up at him with tired eyes. They’re in the booth, and rehearsal is running much later than usual with so little time to go before the show.

I know, Hunk says. I know. I think I’ll feel better after the first performance is over, y’know? ‘Cause then I’ll know that things are gonna be okay the rest of the time. It's just, on opening night… He sighs. I think not knowing is the worst part.

Keith nods. Well, he says, for what it’s worth, I… I got your back.

It sounds weak, so lame compared to everything Keith wants to say, everything he wishes he had the words to say in this moment.

But Hunk smiles. Most of it comes from his eyes. I know, he says. And I’ve got yours.

(Twenty.)

#

Opening night starts off without a hitch. Keith gets to watch the show from the booth with Hunk, working the lights and sound in tandem.

It's not long, though, before something goes awry. At one point during the first act, a spotlight goes out unexpectedly. It catches Keith off guard, but Hunk swoops in and uses the other lights to compensate for the broken one the entire show. The show must go on, he says, apprehension in his eyes and a determined set to his jaw.

And so Hunk’s ability to stay cool under pressure becomes number twenty-one.

Twenty-two is Keith’s realization that he’s in over his head.

#

Closing night is bittersweet. Keith never thought he’d miss the chaos of the show as much as he knows he’s going to tomorrow morning. The cast performs the best they ever have, and as Keith listens to the songs for the last time, another thought tugs at him.

No more rehearsal, no more performances… the twenty-third thing Keith learns is that it means no more Hunk.

The cast party is fun. Together, the cast and crew takes up four tables at the pizza place downtown. Keith is wedged between Lance and Hunk on a leather booth seat. All around him is laughter, floating up to the ceiling like bubbles. It’s a well-deserved celebration of the cast and crew’s hard work, and the giddiness of the night rubs off on him, but not like he thought it would. Not when Keith’s staring in the face of the knowledge that he and Hunk have entirely different schedules, that they're part of different social circles, that they rarely see each other around campus.  Keith knows, preemptively, that eventually, inevitably, this… this _thing_ , whatever it is… it’s going to come to an end. He’s never been good at keeping in touch with people. Shiro, on exchange for a semester in Japan, is an anomaly, an exception to the rule. Whatever potential there is with Hunk, Keith knows that it’s probably going to fizzle out, especially with midterms on the horizon and his own seeming inability to pick up the damn phone.

Hunk nudges Keith with his elbow. Hey. You good?

Keith nods, swallowing his mouthful of Coke. It dawns on him that he’s gone quiet, mourning the loss of something that’s yet to disappear. Yeah, he says, and the dull ache inside his ribs gets heavier, like his lungs are filling up with lead. I’m fine.

Everyone leaves the restaurant around midnight. Keith and Hunk and a handful of others pile into Lance’s ancient SUV and start making the rounds to drop everybody off.

There’s a chorus of _bye, Keith!_ s as he climbs out of the backseat and steps onto the sidewalk in front of his apartment building.

I’ll see you later? Hunk asks, right before Keith closes the door.

Yeah, Keith says, and the words weigh heavy on his tongue. You bet.

Keith stares at the ceiling for a long time afterward. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

But when he wakes up the next morning, he wakes up to muted sunlight filtering through grey clouds and a message on his phone.

_(8:32 AM) Hi :) the weather’s supposed to be decent today. Feel like going for a picnic?_

He does.

A thought starts knocking at the back door of his brain, pounding its fists and hollering through the door that this sounds an awful lot like a date.

Keith doesn’t let the thought in.

He does, however, put on one of his nicer shirts before heading out the door.

#

They meet on the green of campus later that day, although at this time of year, it’s more orange and gold for all the leaves on the ground. The sun is warm on Keith’s back, a strange contrast to the bracing breeze that whistles through his hair and the buttons of his shirt. They’re sprawled out on a picnic blanket that Hunk brought, but Keith wishes they were walking. He’s fidgety today, almost too fidgety to properly enjoy what's in front of him.

The only easy part of the whole thing is the conversation, because this is him and Hunk, and they get each other. They talk about space, and plans for Thanksgiving, and the play, and the second-hand motorcycle that Keith’s got his eye on, and everything in between. And somewhere along the way, Keith realizes how much he would have missed this, and that makes twenty-four.

When they’re done eating, Hunk ditches the basket and blanket in his car, and they go for a walk, weaving through the trees.

And another thing, Hunk says, breaking away from the topic they were on. Keith looks up from the leaves he was kicking. I, uh… Oh gosh. He laughs, but it’s laced with nervousness. I was just wondering… Hunk scratches the back of his neck. Would it be weird if we held hands? The words tumble out of his mouth like marbles.

He must take Keith’s momentary silence and wide eyes as a no, because he backpedals quickly, rushing to do damage control. It’s totally cool if you don’t, he says, it’s just that I’ve kinda liked you for a while, and…

And that’s twenty-five.

Hunk looks at the ground. I’ve been reading this wrong, haven’t I?

What? Keith blurts. No, that’s not- I mean… He takes a breath. I like you too.  And he grabs Hunk’s hand.

It’s so warm.

Hunk’s smile is a mile wide, outshining the persistent autumn sun. Wow, he says, half-words, half-laugh. Keith knows the feeling. He couldn’t bite back his smile if he tried. So you like me, huh?

Yeah, Keith says, and he swings their joined hands between them, ever so slightly. I kinda really do.

That heavy ache in his chest is back, but this time, instead of lead, it feels like gold.

#

I’ll see you later? Hunk asks as Keith’s getting ready to go.

Keith grins. You know it, he says.

He’s only walked a few steps away when he hears Hunk calling, wait! and jogging toward Keith.

Hey, he says, still wearing that beautiful breathless grin. Um. Can I...?

Keith realizes what he means a split second later, the corners of his mouth turning up of their own volition.

Hell yeah, he says, already leaning in.

The twenty-sixth thing Keith learns is Hunk’s lips.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the things we learn in school [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434545) by [JadenGrace1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadenGrace1/pseuds/JadenGrace1)




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